


My own heart let me have more have pity on

by orphan_account



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: M/M, The mind of Gordon Brown is an exquisitely uncomfortable place to live, Tony would like more sex and less feelings, We know little about him that does not lead ineluctably to this conclusion, and has chosen to lust after a man almost laughably ill-suited to assist him in this pursuit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 11:59:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7102312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>here is the deepest secret nobody knows</i>
  <br/>
  <i>(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud</i>
  <br/>
  <i>and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows</i>
  <br/>
  <i>higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)</i>
  <br/>
  <i>and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)</i></p><p> </p><p>~ e e cummings</p>
            </blockquote>





	My own heart let me have more have pity on

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corporates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corporates/gifts).



 

_Palace of Westminster, 1984_

  

They sit up together late, as friends or lovers might, late nights with no sleep in a room with no windows. The long days blur unevenly into evenings, evenings run on into early mornings, and still they sit up over paperwork, bitching about Neil and about John and about the Tories. They sit up late together until Tony’s smiles grow soft and small and very nearly real.

 

 _When you’re Prime Minister_ , he says, and Gordon hears the words and the conviction in them, and the fondness in Tony’s voice.

 

He feels Tony’s fingers digging into his chest.

 

Tony, sat across the office, curled sleepily into his chair, can’t. Can't see his fingers pressed hard into Gordon’s ribcage, or Gordon’s skin breaking beneath them, or the blood that blossoms there, bright and wet and red as roses.

 

Tony sits across the office and smiles small smiles, as real as he knows how. He wants to move closer; knows that moving closer would mean Gordon flinching away. It’s late and he’s tired and it frustrates him, how Gordon can look at him like that, everything in his face and his voice an _invitation_ to move closer and touch him, and then recoil when Tony does.

 

Tony wants to move closer, but his fingers are pressing deep into Gordon’s side, and Gordon’s blood clings to the skin between his fingers; Gordon's blood is smeared over Tony’s palm; Gordon’s blood is sliding down over Tony’s wrist, slow and chillingly intimate. Tony is far, far too close already.

 

Tony watches him with a small smile and perfect eyes, perfectly failing to see what isn't happening. Unable to feel his hand around the tissue and muscle of Gordon’s heart, Tony mistakes the itch in his fingers for lust and his racing pulse for feeling. Gordon feels Tony’s fingers slide deeper, and Tony hears his own breath catch and wonders if he’s in love. Gordon does not blame him for it.

 

Gordon feels Tony trace soft, painful patterns on the bone of his ribcage, and largely blames himself.

 

 

* * *

 

  

_The Carlyle Hotel, New York, 1992_

 

Gordon lies awake as Tony falls asleep, snoring softly into Gordon’s shoulder. He lies awake in the dark and tries to forget the sharp, breathless moans Tony had made as he'd got closer and closer to coming, and how his eyes had fluttered shut in satisfaction right after, and the fond things Tony had murmured, drifting off to sleep. He thinks about costings, tax receipts and growth forecasts; ignores the sound of New York outside the hotel window; ignores Tony’s smug, well-fucked smile; ignores the blood under Tony’s fingernails.

 

He can feel Tony’s fingers curled deep inside his chest, hot and eager and bruising, and he ignores that, too.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Upper Street, Islington, 1994_

  

Tony says _Granita_ with a faint apology in his voice, and Gordon goes to dinner like a Christian goes to the lions, savage and unrepentant and reconciled to the future in all its torturous glory. Tony’s tie is red; his hands are the unpleasant brown of old bloodstains. Tony wants him closer, even now, and Tony wants to be leader, and Gordon feels Tony’s nails press crescent-shaped bruises into one of his pulmonary veins, and he leaves as soon as he can.

 

Unlike the early martyrs, Gordon walks away breathing.

 

He can feel the scar Tony’s fingers left. He sits up late, working. _Heart,_ he tells himself wryly, _we will forget him,_  and tries to remember where he'd read that. He ignores the pain. 

 

* * *

 

 

_No. 10 Downing Street, 2007_

 

Their Government tears itself to shreds but the hole under Gordon's left shoulder begins to heal. 

 

It wasn't real anyway. Tony’s hands have always been clean of Gordon's blood, and as many times as Gordon checks, there are no scars on his skin. None of it was real, so there are other people for Gordon to adore with the ferocity of a saint and the precision of a dentist’s drill. Some of them adore him back.

 

(When Tony resigns, Gordon's pulse goes missing for months.)

 

There are other people to stay awake with and fall asleep beside. Some of them love him like pilgrims love to kiss the foot of the Good Friday cross, and some love him reluctantly, and others with all-consuming faith. Above all there is Sarah, who loves him with a gentle forbearance and quiet good-naturedness that brings light back into the worst days.

  
Nobody ever rips the heart from Gordon’s chest again.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is the opening line of Gerard Manley Hopkins' Poem 47. It's splendid and was also quite patently written about Gordon Brown.
> 
>  _Heart, we will forget him_ is the opening line, coincidentally, of Emily Dickinson's Poem 47-
> 
>  
> 
> _Heart, we will forget him_  
>  _You and I, tonight_  
>  _You may forget the warmth he gave,_  
>  _I will forget the light._
> 
>  
> 
> The idea for the fic came from [a piece of fanart by corporates](http://c0rporates.tumblr.com/post/145255705257).


End file.
